Posted by shavina

I’m not going to waste your time. Losing weight permanently means a permanent change in your lifestyle, plain and simple. No change in lifestyle = no change in weight (well, not for the better anyway!)

As with everything in life the truth is composed of multiple facets and leaving just one out sets you up for failure in much the same way as hiding the truth is as bad for a relationship as outright lying.

Your weight loss goals will be achieved by looking at 3 areas.

1) Eating Habits
2) Exercise Habits
3) Mental Habits

It’s important to understand that it’s highly unlikely that you have the will power to make sweeping changes in your life and make them permanent. Why? No, it’s not because you’re less of a person, it’s because you’re a typical person.

What we’re talking about doing is changing habits, and habits tend to have a 6 week cycle before they embed themselves and actually become habits. What does this mean to you? Well, you need to make 1 small change every 6 weeks or so.

At the end of a year, you will have accumulated multiple healthy habits without feeling like you’ve gone through this harrowing ordeal, which makes you much more likely to succeed with your weight loss goals.

There are a plethora of articles out there dealing with changing your eating habits so I’m not going to list every conceivable diet here. What matters is that your diet is healthy, balanced, and that during the ‘weight loss’ phase you use more calories than you consume.

Once you’ve achieved your target weight then it’s just a question of adjusting your portion size so that what you consume equals what you burn. Your diet will still be healthy and balanced.

An example of the changes would be as follows:

1st 6 week cycle
Remove fizzy drinks/sodas from your diet
Replace them with water or fruit smoothies.

2nd 6 week cycle
Continue with weeks 1’s new habit.
Remove pasta from your diet.
Replace it with whole grain rice.

3rd 6 week cycle
Continue with week 1 & 2’s new habits.
Stop frying your food.
Grill it instead.

Can you see where I’m going with this? Only 1 small change at a time and stick with it until it becomes a habit (approximately 6 weeks).

This is almost certainly the best method of ensuring lasting dietary changes.

The same is true for exercise.

It’s important not to set goals too high for yourself, especially with exercise. The truth is, most people just don’t care about getting fit. What they do care about is perhaps not being quite so out of breath at the top of the stairs.

So, an example of a 6 week exercise plan might be…

NB: Check with your doctor before commencing any form of exercise plan.

1st 6 week cycle
Do just 30 seconds of step-ups on the bottom stair of a flight of stairs. A step-up is where you step up one stair with the left and then the right feet, and then step down again with the left and right feet. 30 seconds a day is nothing. Even when you don’t feel like doing it, it’s much easier to convince yourself to do something for only 30 seconds than it is to motivate yourself to go for a 30 minute power walk.

Do this every day (remember you have to bed it in as a habit)

2nd 6 week cycle
Continue with week 1’s habit.

Roll a towel up and place it on the floor of your bedroom. Stand so that your heels are both on the towel. Do 10 squats at a brisk pace (approx 1 per second).

These small changes will have a compounding effect on your life, in much the same way compound interest affects money. It’s powerful, and it’s permanent.

The last thing to look at are your mental habits.

The key here is to understand yourself.

There are 4 broad categories and every person is 2 of them. We just differ in which 2 we are. Let me explain.

Toward / Away From.
This describes a key motivating factor in your life. You either move toward goals or away from something you dislike or are afraid of. Understand this and figure out which you are and then write down a goal for yourself accordingly.

Eg: I want to be as thin as I was before I had my kids. (Toward) I don’t want to look like my Uncle Fred. (Away From)

Can you see how it works?

The next 2 categories are:

Internal / External
This describes another 2 motivating factors. They concern where your primary area of reference is when you make a decision.

Internal involves referencing a question or goal or statement against your own personal internal values.

External involves referencing a question or goal or statement against your perceptions of what other peoples’ values are.

Eg: I want to be thin so that I feel fantastic about myself again. (Internal) I want to be thin so that I fit in more with the people at work. (External) I want to be thin so that people will accept me. (External)

These are very basic examples but you get the idea.

Decide whether you’re an Toward/External person or an Away From/External person, or even a Toward/Internal person and write your motivating statements accordingly.

Doing it in this way means that you create a vision for yourself that is much more motivating because it’s much more personal.

When you feel a little low, or just before your 30 seconds of exercise just look at your wall where you’ve naturally stuck your goals so you can’t miss them!

I still have a scrappy piece of paper on my wall that’s about 3 years old now above my computer and I still refer to it. Why? Because it works, it’s that simple.

Copyright: Paul Whyte